Visitors can listen to jazz performances in a discovery room. The museum also has a studio and a sound library. Rare early jazz performances are projected on a video wall.

In evenings, visitors can enjoy the Blue Room, a jazz club attached to the museum. The club showcases contemporary Kansas City jazz artists.

The museum, which opened Sept. 5, is a major part of an eight-year, $26-million project "to restore the historic 18th & Vine District to its 1930s grandeur."

The 18th & Vine project is being heralded as "the revitalization of African-American culture in Kansas City." The historic district was the center of African-American life for more than 40 years. Until the 1960s, segregation kept Kansas City's African Americans living in a small geographic area. Promoters said the district "once resounded to the sounds of jazz greats Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Jay McShann and Charlie `Bird' Parker."

The 18th & Vine Horace M. Peterson III Visitors Center explains the neighborhood's impact on the cultural, social and economic development of Kansas City.

Another highlight of the project is the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, scheduled to open Nov. 1, and Gem Theater, a 1930s movie house for African Americans, which has been converted into a 500-seat performing arts center.

The baseball museum first opened in 1994 in temporary quarters. It will close in mid-October to move into its new home, which is five times larger, across the street.

That expanded museum will cover the history of the Negro Leagues, which ended in the 1960s. (The Negro National Baseball League was founded in 1920 at the former Paseo YMCA, just a block from the baseball museum.) It will focus on contributions those leagues made to sports as well as to the civil rights movement.

That museum will include a 75-seat theater, 15 interactive computer stations, 12 life-size, bronze-cast sculptures of legendary players and a gift shop. A research center and computerized batting cage will be added later.

Kansas City officials say they hope 18th & Vine will spur retail, commercial and even residential development throughout the neighborhood, including shops and restaurants for visitors.

Admission to the jazz museum is $6, $2.50 for children. It is open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, noon to 6 p.m. Sundays. (Closed Mondays.)

Admission to the baseball museum is $2, $1 for children under 12. It is open 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, noon to 4:30 p.m. Sundays.

After the baseball museum reopens, hours and admissions will be the same and joint admissions will be offered to both places.

The Museums at 18th & Vine are at 1616 E. 18th St., one block southeast of Interstate 670 and The Paseo. (816) 871-3016.

Pennsylvania's toll-free fall foliage hotline -- (800) 325-5467 -- promises more detailed information about where and how to admire the most brilliant autumn colors in the state.

It includes information about the best routes to travel each week for prime foliage viewing, plus festivals and other major events.

The hotline operates 24 hours a day through Nov. 19, or until all the leaves fall. It is updated every Wednesday.

More than half of Pennsylvania is covered by forests. Autumn colors are so stunning because the state has 127 types of trees.

"We should be treated to a typically beautiful and vibrant fall in Pennsylvania," said State Forester Dr. James R. Grace. "Our forests are lush and healthy, because the usual damaging bugs and diseases have been on the decline for the past few years."

Color usually peaks in the northern third of Pennsylvania the first two weeks of October; in the central third of the state in mid-October, and in the southern third the last two weeks of the month.

A new feature this year is a fax-on-demand service. Callers who provide a fax number will be sent suggested driving tours, additional event information and a map of the state's three fall foliage zones.